


Burnt

by AlterEgon



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Burns, Gen, Jonathan's POV, Positive mention of self-harm (this is JCM after all!), edom, referenced self-harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 09:06:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18657313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlterEgon/pseuds/AlterEgon
Summary: Have you wondered why flashback Jonathan in Season three looks amazingly unburnt as compared to Season-two Jonathan? I have. Here's my attempt of making sense of it.This is Jonathan, so… references to self-injury, burns, pain…





	Burnt

**Author's Note:**

> Author's notes: The first sentence of this little fic is, of course, a quote from Wool, by Hugh Howey. If you haven't read it and you like a good dystopia, I recommend you go read it now.

_It wasn’t just that his burns were bad. They were everywhere._

Jonathan stumbled to his feet, his own ragged breaths sounding like sobs in his ears.

 _Stop whining_ , he silently hissed at himself. _You like pain. It makes you stronger. It makes you better. You can use it._

He used it all the time. He didn't even remember when he had started drawing a blade across his arm for more than to draw blood for the spellwork he was studying; when he had started spilling hot water onto his hand, or to press his palm against the surface of a boiling cauldron until the skin blistered. He valued the sharp clarity that came with it. It brought everything in focus – the world around him just like the power within, allowing him to push his boundaries again, and again.

But over the years, he had forgotten the agony that came from having his skin seared away by forces outside his control.

The time when he had first arrived was etched forever in his mind.

When some of the residents of this plane had come to play with him that first day, he had screamed his throat raw until he had no voice left. He had cried himself to sleep for a long time afterwards, fighting to keep back the tears, not because of the weakness they proved, not because of the shame they made him feel, but because the salty fluid drew rivers of fire across his face where they touched exposed flesh.

He had screamed again the first time he had spotted himself in a polished surface, a grotesque, burned beyond all recognition. He didn't even know why it had hit him so. He'd known what the rest of his body looked like.

You weren't supposed to survive without intense treatment if more than a certain amount of your body surface was burned away. What was it? Twenty percent? That sounded about right. He thought he had read that somewhere, while still educated by father.

That rule didn't apply to him. His demon blood kept him alive.

He had found out that it also regenerated the damaged tissue, but his joy had been short-lived. They found his human appearance an insult for their demon eyes, and they had already learned that they could alter him in their image as they liked.

Slowly, he had grown better at avoiding them. He had acquired the skills to fight them off, to hurt them in turn, to make them recoil before they could touch him. They hadn't had a go at him in a long, long time.

That didn't mean he had no burns. He didn’t think there was a single day in the last decade that he hadn't been marked by them, fresh and blistering, oozing, blackened and charred, or in various stages of scarring and healing.

Those were nothing.

Little love marks, really.

Nothing but the signs of Lilith's affection. His mother's affection. The word still felt like acid on his tongue, even though it had long made its way into his thoughts. He had stopped mentally correcting himself every time he noticed.

Today was his own fault, he told himself, steeling himself for the pain to come as he cleaned dirt from his body, every contact feeling like new fires flaring up. The movement formed cracks in the charred skin on the back of his hand, sluggishly oozing blood and clear fluid.

Still, he had to clean up. He knew from experience that avoiding that would make things all the worse later on.

Just a few hours ago, he had been exhilarated. His plans had worked out like a charm, the most powerful spell he had ever completed, and, what was more: his own personal ticket out of Edom. Finding a greater demon, captured and bound, communicating and negotiating with him, eventually releasing him bound in gratitude to him so the creature would, in turn, work to free him had been a masterpiece … and he'd done it all under Lilith's nose without letting her catch on.

He'd been so focused on his plans, so caught up in daydreams of what he would do once he emerged, that he had never seen them coming.

And come they had, and they'd had him restrained faster than he could gather his wits or his powers. They'd been relentless, making up for all the years he had cheated them of.

At least they hadn't touched his eyes.

He inhaled sharply against the remembered agony adding to the very real, physical one already present. It had been months before he had recovered. Lilith had been furious. At them, for damaging him to a point where he couldn't follow his lessons. At him, for letting it happen. She'd relented on the latter soon enough.

He'd spent most of that time hiding in his room, unable to defend himself even to the small degree he was capable of back then, but there'd been occasions when she had insisted he join her. Being led by her had added burns on top of burns. Sometimes he thought he could still see the shadows of some of those marks painted on his skin. Mostly, he thought it was his imagination.

As if of their own accord, his eyes went to his arm, and a dry, painful laugh forced its way up his throat. There certainly wasn't anything of them to be seen _now_.

He found robes to cover himself with, hissing through his teeth when the fabric came in contact with his body. Usually soft and smooth on his skin, it felt like sandpaper and thorns now, fresh fountains of searing pain springing up everywhere.

Still, he needed it. Lilith disapproved of inadequate attire. When he'd been younger, she would have gone as far as to dress him herself if he didn't live up to her standards. He'd learned quickly what those were.

It wasn't just his mother's sense of decorum, though. Even in Edom, you would grow cold if your skin was gone.

He had kept his eyes lowered so far. Now he glanced at the mirror, not wishing to and yet finding his eyes irresistibly drawn to it.

His burns looked just as bad as they felt. His hair was gone; his skin was charred away, his nose and ears ruined; his lips a dried-out memory covering his teeth.

Well. They would heal. He would regenerate in time. He would—

Realization hit him with a near-physical force.

He didn't have the time.

It would take weeks before the pain lessened, possibly months before he would approach anything presentable to anyone but demons.

But this was supposed to be his day of escape! His day of freedom. That was what had led to all of this in the first place.

He didn't have weeks. He certainly didn't have months.

Azazel was already free, and on the way to release him from his prison in turn.

A desperate sob boiled up his throat and through his charred lips. He had no way to contact the demon, to tell him to postpone. Even if he did, he had no guarantee that Azazel wouldn't find a way to worm his way out of his part of the bargain, or that he would get himself caught and banished again before it was time.

He could try to fight the call and the pull when it came.

Cold dread washed over him at the thought.

No. He would not give up his only chance of ever leaving this plane to which his own father had damned him.

Only one way to go then: To leave the way he was now, and deal with his condition as he had to.

He closed his eyes, mercifully dry. He hadn't wept in a long time. He wasn't going to start again now.

Focusing his mind inwards, collecting his pain and shaping it to his needs, he started preparing his end of the journey.


End file.
